‘I do, sir — I do!’ she cried, hands pressed fervently together in appeal to this potential rescuer, and fear in her glance.
‘You hear the lady and you see,’ said the captain. ‘I hope you’ll not stop to argue.’
The buck swore most unbecomingly through his teeth, threatened to do horrible things to this intruder, but kept his fierce eyes on the gleaming barrel of the captain’s pistol.
‘Sink me now!’ he ended. ‘D’ye make yourself this lady’s champion?’
‘It’s a fine morning for knight-errantry, whatever.’
‘Knight-errantry, d’ye say? Faugh! Look now! I don’t know who the devil you may be, but since you come so cursedly interfering — —’ He broke off and glared at the captain. ‘Now, why the devil should I be taking you into our confidence?’ he wondered savagely.
‘To save the lady the trouble,’ suggested the captain.
‘Knight-errantry!’ sneered the buck again; and then a gleam of inspiration came into his bold eyes. ‘You play knight-errant with a pistol! Faugh!’
‘I’ll play it with anything you please.’
The morning sun and the little lady had between them got into the captain’s blood, so that business was quite forgotten.
‘Will you? Will you take a turn with me as one gentleman with another, so that we may settle this matter of your unwarranted intrusion in my affairs?’
‘You mistake,’ said the captain. ‘It’s the lady’s affairs I’m intruding in, and not unwarranted, but by her invitation, whatever.’
The gentleman sneered.
‘You are splitting straws.’
‘Shall I be splitting your windpipe?’ says Evans, without heat.
‘Let us to it, then,’ says the gentleman.
‘With all my heart.’
Thereupon the gentleman peeled off his laced coat and put it across the window, so that it hung half on one side, half on the other, of the open chaise door. The captain observed that it was a mighty fine coat, and wondered from force of professional habit what the pockets might contain.
Then the buck lugged out his small sword and stood waiting. The captain’s preparations were less elaborate. He restored his pistol to its holster and came forward sword in hand. The little lady, standing now in the door of the chaise, with fluttering bosom and eyes in which fear was deepening into terror, cried out at this.
‘Oh, sir, oh, sir, why do you consent?’
‘I am wondering myself, ma’am.’
‘Get your pistol again, sir. He will surely kill you. He is a dreadful — dreadful man.’
‘The last one I killed was much dreadfuller — yes, indeed,’ said the captain. He lied in this for the sheer humour of it, for in all his wild career he had never yet made himself guilty of taking life. With that he made a leg very prettily. ‘Are you ready, sir? Then on guard, if you please.’
The buck flashed the lady a malicious glance — a glance which said as plainly as words, ‘I’ll deal with you presently, my girl, and you shall pay for having brought this upon me’ — and so fell on guard.
In his readiness to fight, the captain found confirmation of his first judgement of the fellow as an adventurer embarking upon a shady enterprise. A gentleman sure of himself and his position would have taken any way but this to settle such a matter as the present one. Further, this same readiness to fight argued a confidence in himself based, no doubt, upon skill and experience. Now, the captain was no less confident of his own powers, being himself a considerable man of his hands; but he realized at once that, unless this affair were to have in one way or the other an issue more serious than he could desire, he must end it almost before it were begun.
It was a trick that had done him good service aforetime, and it did not fail him now. Scarcely had the blades touched each other in the first engagement than the captain dropped his point, whirled it under and round his opponent’s hand, and then straightened his arm. It was all done in one movement with the speed of lightning, and at the end of it — almost before the fine gentleman realized that a disengage had taken place — there was a foot or so of the captain’s blade well home in his sword-arm.
The fellow uttered a howl of pain and rage, and the sword dropped from his nerveless hand. Captain Evans wiped his steel with a dainty lace kerchief, then sheathed it, and tossed the handkerchief away with an air. Then he addressed his adversary, who was swearing and groaning and clamouring for help to staunch his wound, all in one.
‘I think, sir, you’re lusty enough to help yourself,’ said he.
Thereupon our gallant, evidently in mortal terror lest he should bleed to death, pulls a handkerchief from the breast of his shirt, and, holding one corner of it in his teeth and the other in his left hand, sets about putting a bandage about his arm, going down on one knee by the side of the ditch for greater ease in doing so.
‘Ma’am,’ said the captain, ‘there’s a scoundrel disposed of, and you may continue your journey in peace. To ensure it I’ll escort you some part of the way, if you’ll suffer me.’
‘Oh, sir!’ said she consentingly, whereupon the captain slammed the door of the chaise, swung himself up into the saddle again, and ordered the postboy to proceed.
But at the first crack of the whip up jumped the wounded buck, suddenly realizing what was taking place. In expectation of this, the captain had pulled his mare squarely across the road to bar the other’s way.
‘My coat!’ screams the other in a frenzy. ‘My coat, sir, if you please!’
Now, it seemed to Captain Evans, as it must seem to you, more than ordinarily singular that a gentleman in the buck’s position, a gentleman who apparently had lost so much that morning, should be so supremely concerned with the trifling loss of a coat. So impressed, indeed, was the captain that when miss would have thrown the gentleman his garment he interposed, and bade her retain it as a keepsake.
‘You’re a deal too hot,’ he informed the buck. ‘You’ll be the better for a cooling.’
And with that rode off in the wake of the chaise, leaving our fine gentleman in shirt and breeches, the incarnation of dismay and rage.
A mile or so they may have ridden, miss ever and anon putting her head from the window to cast a remark at her escort, and her escort doing his best to answer her becomingly, when at last she gave the order to halt.
‘Sir,’ she said, ‘could you not tether your horse behind and ride with me? I feel that I owe you explanations.’
‘Madame,’ quoth he, very gallantly, ‘I could no more be guilty of forcing a lady’s confidence than of refusing so charming an invitation.’
And he proceeded to do as she suggested.
‘You’ll think that I have behaved very oddly, sir, in claiming your assistance,’ she began, as soon as he was settled at her side.
‘Since dealing with the object of your trouble, ma’am, I think the behaviour very natural. What I don’t understand is how you came to be running off with that fellow — for that, I suppose, was the situation.’
Round eyes looked at him in enquiry, and also in surprise at his penetration.
‘He called himself your husband, ma’am,’ the captain explained, ‘which I took to be an anticipation of his hopes.’
‘Oh, sir, I must tell you everything, and cast myself upon your mercy. Perhaps you will then direct me how to act.’
With that she told her story — told it with downcast eyes and troubled countenance, her hands listlessly folded in her lap. The gentleman’s name was Lake — Mr Julian Lake he called himself — and, met by chance at Ranelagh in the first instance, he had followed her down into the country to Petersfield, where she dwelt with her guardian, Sir Henry Woodbridge. He had come into her life in a moment of crisis. A young gentleman — whose name she left out of her story — to whom she was promised in marriage, and to whom she was deeply attached, had run off with a lady whose identity she also refrained from disclosing. And then Mr Lake had swooped down upon her, an impetuous whirlwind of a lover, with a
n air of the great world about him to dazzle her, and, as women will in her case, she had snatched at this chance of showing her false lover how little she was troubled by his defection. With her consent, Mr Lake had written to her guardian; and her guardian, for reasons which he had omitted to disclose to her, had replied, refusing to receive the fellow or countenance his suit. Thereupon Mr Lake had proposed the elopement, and in despair she had consented.
They had set out from Petersfield soon after dawn that day. Mr Lake had made arrangements for their marriage at Guildford. But with every mile that they rode together the sense of what she was doing, and the fear of it, increased in the heart of Miss Helston, until in the end, being fully if tardily awake to the folly of entrusting her life to a man of whom, after all, she knew nothing, and for whom she felt no more than a simulated affection, having its roots in pique, she frankly told him so, and begged him to order the chaise to be put about, and either to conduct her or send her back to her guardian. It was then that Mr Lake revealed himself for the adventurer that he really was. Miss Helston was — or would be presently, on attaining full age, to which she was very near — a lady of very considerable wealth, and so you conceive the rage and chagrin begotten in the heart of our gentleman, who had been congratulating himself upon the snug acquisition of her fortune. His conduct had been abominable. He had allowed her to perceive that he would stop at no violence short of murder to compel her to carry out her undertaking to marry him, and but for the captain’s very timely arrival on the scene, Miss Heston trembled to think what might have become of her.
It was a very moving tale, and Captain Evans, who was a little prone to sentiment, was deeply touched. Then he grew practical.
‘And what’s to be done now?’ quoth he.
Miss looked at him with those melting, questioning eyes of hers. They had clattered through Godalming while her tale was a-telling, and were holding amain on the road to Guildford, the unreflecting postboy intent upon carrying out his original instructions, without regard to the change of passengers that had taken place.
‘What — what do you advise?’ she asked pathetically.
‘Why, that you carry out your earlier intention of returning to Petersfield and your guardian. What else can you do, whatever? — unless you have friends with whom you would prefer to stay awhile until you can make your peace with Sir Henry.’
‘No, no!’ she said. ‘I’ll go back to him. I’ll go back to Petersfield.’
Greatly relieved, the captain gave the necessary order. The chaise went about, and set out to return in its tracks. And then the captain bethought him of that important engagement of his for noon that day with the ostler of the Fox and Hounds at Petersfield — an engagement blown out of his mind by the events, and no longer to be kept with any degree of punctuality. It was striking one as they clattered for the second time over the cobbled streets of Godalming.
‘I — I am very hungry’ says miss pathetically. It was not a cry to which a man of heart could close his ears. ‘I haven’t tasted food today,’ she added. And at that he called himself a brute, and awoke to the fact that his own appetite was keen enough.
They drew up, by his order, at the Swan — a house at which he was unknown — and in a private room which he commanded above-stairs they sat down a half-hour later to the best dinner the house could provide and a bottle of the landlord’s best Burgundy. Having drunk a generous share of it, Captain Evans came to account the time well lost, and the business appointment at Petersfield a matter of small consequence compared with the sweet delight of protecting and ministering to this choice, helpless wisp of womanhood. That satisfaction with things as they were was soon to increase to thankfulness, and he was to see in all that had happened the hand of Providence befriending him. It was the chamberlain of the inn who came presently to enlighten him.
‘I hear, sir,’ he said, in the course of his ministrations, ‘that the Portsmouth Road will be safer for travellers after today. That pest of the highway, Captain Evans, is likely to be laid by the heels before night.’
‘And is that so?’ says the captain, with sharp interest. ‘Now, that’s mighty good hearing — yes, indeed.’
‘You’re right, sir. A gentleman just arrived from Petersfield tells me that the sheriff and his men had spread a net for the rascal, in which he must have been taken before this.’
The captain poured himself the remainder of the wine with a steady hand.
‘Yet what all the world knows Captain Evans himself may discover,’ said he.
‘Too late for that, sir. He’ll be took by now,’ said the chamberlain with confidence as he withdrew.
The captain raised his glass to pledge the lady who all unconsciously had been the means of saving him from what he now surmised to be a bait trapped for him by that scoundrel Tim. Aloud, he toasted her safe return, a toast to which she responded almost gaily.
Her spirits, too, had improved under the invigorating influence of meat and wine, and the dark cloud that had hung over her since morning began at last to lift. She took an optimistic view of the future, and envisaged a return to Sir Henry’s house without any serious misgivings. When he knew all he would forgive the escapade. What troubled her far more at the moment, she confessed, was how adequately to return thanks to her preserver.
‘You have been to me the best friend that ever I had,’ she told him, ‘for you came to me in the hour of my greatest need, and never hesitated to afford me your assistance.’
He looked into the dainty face, with its so delicate complexion and eyes of blue, over which the lids were shyly and alluringly fluttering, and heaved a sigh.
‘I am thinking we have been good friends to each other,’ said he. ‘It will be something for me to remember afterwards.’
‘Afterwards?’ says Miss.
‘To be sure, afterwards — when you and I have gone our separate ways again, having each of the other just the memory of this day.’
‘It will be a very grateful memory to me,’ said she; and he saw the faintest cloud gathering again about her eyes.
‘And a sweet one to me,’ said he, and sighed again.
Now, it may have been that sigh of his that touched her, or the Burgundy that had emboldened her, or both working conjointly.
‘We shall meet again, of course,’ says she. ‘We — we should be friends after what has happened — after the way in which you have befriended me.’ And she looked at him with such ravishing candour for a moment that he was put out of breath and out of countenance.
‘You — you make too much of the little service I have done you,’ said he, faltering.
She frowned, and as her eyes were lowered he observed a sudden deepening of the colour in her cheeks, and realized how ungracious his words must have sounded. She pushed back her chair and rose.
‘Miss Helston,’ he exclaimed, ‘you must not misunderstand. I — —’
‘I do not, sir. Your honest sincerity is very charming to me after what I have suffered at the hands of your sex. I could not fail to appreciate it deeply.’
But the sarcasm in the words cut him sharply, the more sharply because he must suffer it in silence. What was there he could say?
She crossed to the window and looked out upon the sunlit inn-yard. A coach came clattering into it at that moment.
‘Shall we be resuming our journey, sir?’ said she. ‘We have some way to ride — that is, if I may still count upon the honour of the escort.’
He got to his feet.
‘Now, why do you say that to me?’ he growled, half resentfully, ‘Can’t you see that I would — —’
Her sharp outcry interrupted him. She swung to him, showing a white, scared face: her bosom raced.
‘Sir Henry — my guardian!’ she cried. ‘He is here! He saw me! And there are people with him!’
Captain Evans received the news with positive relief. It would make an end to a situation that was beginning to occasion him some anxiety.
‘In that case, ma’am, y
our troubles will be at an end.’
‘Will they?’ She looked at him, and then the door opened, and from the threshold a tall, lean, sardonic gentleman stood regarding them with a smile that was not quite pleasant.
Captain Evans blenched. But it was not the sardonic countenance of Sir Henry that occasioned his disorder; it was another face perceived over Sir Henry’s shoulder, the round, jolly face of Sir Thomas Blount, the sheriff of the county; nor did he pause to think under the moment’s shock that his own face could not be as well known to Sir Thomas as was Sir Thomas’s to him. He saw that behind the sheriff there were several men, and he accounted himself lost. Somehow they had trapped him when he failed to walk into the trap at Petersfield. Perhaps they had come upon Mr Lake, and he had assisted them with information. With his glance he measured the distance to the window, mentally calculated its height from the ground, and strove to imagine what might await him in the inn-yard should he take the desperate decision to go that way. Meanwhile the drawling voice of Sir Henry Woodbridge — a voice that sorted excellently with the gentleman’s sardonic countenance — was speaking.
‘It would appear, then, that we arrive in time. I say it would appear so. And for your sake, Mr Lake, I sincerely trust that appearances do not deceive me, otherwise it will be for my friend Sir Thomas Blount to deal with you.’
He sauntered forward. The more corpulent sheriff rolled after him.
‘Egad, yes, my buck,’ gurgled the latter. ‘Ye’re caught red-handed in the hideous act of abduction. I’ve heard of you. I know something of your affairs, Mr Lake, and if you’ve had the services of a parson with this lady I promise you it shall go hard with you.’
Then forth trilled Miss Helston’s laugh, and there was no mistaking its naturalness and freedom from anxiety.
‘Why, Sir Henry,’ she addressed her guardian, ‘this is not Mr Lake — —’
‘Of course not,’ sneered Sir Henry the sardonic, and from that Captain Evans, whose courage had revived upon discovering that he was not himself the object of the sheriff’s pursuit, very promptly took his course.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 527
