“Exactly how I mean to spend my day — barring the skull.”
“They know it, too; it’s a public scandal; even if it wasn’t, I should be ashamed of myself, with that poor man awaiting his end!”
“He was hanged five minutes ago,” declared the Home Secretary, consulting his watch. “And I may as well tell you, my dear, that I had his full confession in my pocket when I gave my decision the night before last. It appears in this morning’s papers. And I fancy that’s my hole,” added Mr. Sellwood, nodding at Jack.
But Jack had no more to say than Lady Caroline, utterly routed for once. The Duke did not perhaps appreciate the situation, or perhaps he was not listening; for his eyes hung very wistfully on Olivia’s plate, which was laden and surrounded by birthday offerings of many descriptions. There were several packets by post, and an open cheque from the Home Secretary. Claude had added his beautifully sealed envelope before going upstairs, and now Llewellyn came in with his “likeness of a lady.” The lady was evidently lost in a fog; the likeness did not exist; and the whole production was exactly like a photographic failure which is both out of focus and “over-exposed.” But it was better than poor Jack’s contribution of nothing at all.
CHAPTER XI
THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH
A loose chain of fairy lights marked the brink of the lake; another was drawn tight from end to end of the balustrade rimming the terrace; and between the two, incited by champagne and the Hungarian band, the rank and file of the tenantry cut happy capers in the opening eye of the harvest moon.
At one end of the terrace the fire-workers awaited the word to rake and split the still serenity of the heavens; at the other, the fairy footlights picked out the twinkling diamonds and glaring shirt-fronts of the house-party, the footmen’s gilt buttons and powdered heads; for the men had just come out of the dining-room, and tea was being handed round.
“It is going beautifully — beautifully!” whispered Lady Caroline, swooping down upon the Duke, who had himself made straight for her daughter’s side. “Inside and out, high and low, all are happy, it is one huge success. How could it be otherwise? You make such a charming host! My dear Jack, I congratulate you from my heart; and the occasion must be my excuse for the familiarity.”
“No excuse needed; I like it,” replied the Duke. “I only wish you’d all call me Jack,” he added, with a sidelong look at Olivia; “surely we’re all pretty much in the same family boat! Well, I’m glad you think it’s a success, and I’m glad I make a decent host; but I shouldn’t if I hadn’t got the loan of such an excellent hostess, Lady Caroline.”
“You are so sweet!”
“Nay, it’s you that’s so jolly kind,” laughed Jack. “The fact is, Lady Caroline, I can get along all right at my own table so long as I don’t have to carve — and when I make up my mind to go straight through cold water. I was sorry not to drink Miss Sellwood’s health in anything stronger; but it’s better so.”
“So fine of you,” murmured Lady Caroline; “such a noble example! You can’t think how I’ve admired it in you from the first!”
Yet she looked to see whether his remarks had been overheard. They had not; even Olivia had turned away before they were made, and her mother now followed her example. She was rewarded by seeing the Duke at the girl’s side again when next she looked round.
They were standing against the balustrade, a little apart from the rest. They had set their cups upon the broad stone rim. Jack began to stir his tea with the impotent emphasis of one possessed by the inexpressible. But Olivia gave him no assistance; she seemed more interested in the noisy dancers on the sward below the terrace.
“I hope you’ve had a good time, on the whole,” he began, ineptly enough, at last. “All this is in your honour, you know!”
“Surely not all,” replied the girl, laughing. “Still I don’t know when I had such a delightful birthday, and I want to thank you for everything with all my heart.”
“Everything!” laughed Jack nervously. “I’ve done nothing at all; why, I didn’t even give you a present. That was through a stupid mistake of mine, which we needn’t go into, because now’s the time to rectify it. I’ve been waiting for a chance all the evening. The thing only came a few minutes before dinner. But better late than never, they say, and so I hope you’ll still accept this trifle from me, Miss Sellwood, with every possible good wish for all the years to come. May they be long and — and very happy!”
His voice vibrated with the commonplace words. As he ceased speaking he took from his waistcoat pocket something that was certainly trifling in size, and he set it on the balustrade between the two tea-cups. It was a tiny leathern case, and Olivia held her breath. Next moment an exquisite ring, diamonds and emeralds, scintillated in the light of the nearest fairy lamp.
“This is never for me?” she cried, aghast.
“That it is — if you will take it.”
She was deeply moved: how could she take a ring from him? And yet how could she refuse, or how explain! Each alternative was harder than the last.
“It is far too good for me,” she murmured, “for a mere birthday present! You are too generous. I can’t dream of letting you give me anything half so good!”
“What nonsense! It is not half good enough; it’s only the best I could get from Devenholme. I sent in the dogcart for the crack jeweller of the place; it brought him back with a bagful of things, and this was the best of a bad lot. I wish I’d kept the fellow! You might have chosen something else.”
She saw her loophole and made no reply.
“Would you prefer something else?” he asked eagerly.
“Well, if you insist on giving me a present, it must be something not half so good.”
“That’s my affair.”
“And perhaps not a ring.”
“That’s another matter, and on one condition I’m on: you must let me drive you in to-morrow to choose for yourself.”
She consented gratefully. Her gratitude was the more profuse from, it may be, an exaggerated sense of the dilemma in which she had found herself a moment before; at all events it was very kindly and charmingly expressed. So Jack pocketed the ring and swallowed his tea in excellent heart; longing already for the morrow, for the expedition to Devenholme with Olivia alone at his side.
“That excellent follow seems very busy with our Olivia. Is there anything in it?” asked Mr. Sellwood of his wife.
“I have no idea,” replied Lady Caroline; “you know I never interfere in such matters. I’m glad you think him an excellent fellow, though. He is simply sweet.”
“In fact we might do worse from every point of view; is that it?” said the Home Secretary dryly. “I’m inclined to agree with you. I hope he won’t foozle his shot by being in too great a hurry.”
The fireworks had begun. Rocket after rocket split the sky and descended in a shower of stars. A set-piece stood out against the lake; it represented six French eagles on a shield.
“Come and have a look at the family fowls,” said Jack, rejoining Olivia, who had been talking to Claude. “I’d swop the lot for one respectable emu; it would be a good deal more appropriate for a Duke like me.”
Among other things he had learnt at last to pronounce his own title correctly. Also, he looked well at all times in evening dress, but he had never looked better than he did to-night. Claude had these consolations as he watched the pair go down and mingle with the throng.
As a matter of fact the Duke of St. Osmund’s had never been in higher spirits in the whole course of his chequered career. Olivia had not, indeed, accepted his offering, but she had done much better, for now he was sure of having her to himself for hours the next day. And what might not happen in those hours? This was one factor in his present content; her little hand within his arm was another that thrilled him even more; but there were further and smaller factors which yet astonished him, each with its unexpected measure of gratification. There were the people bowing and curtseying as he came among th
em with Olivia on his arm. There were the momentary glimpses of the stately Towers, seen from end to end in a flash, as a bursting rocket spattered the sky with a million sparks that changed colour as they floated to the earth. And there was the feeling, never before this moment entirely unmixed, that after all it was better to be the Duke of St. Osmund’s than Happy Jack of New South Wales.
“You were right!” he exclaimed, in an attempt to voice what he felt to Olivia; “you were quite right that day in the hut to say ‘I wonder,’ to what I said about not minding if I woke up and found myself on Carara after all. You set me wondering at the time, and now I rather think that I should mind a good deal. This place grows upon you. I feel it more and more every morning when I get the first glimpse of it, coming through the pines. But I never felt it as I do to-night — look at that!”
The entire front of the building was lit up by an enormous Roman candle, playing like a fountain on the terrace. Turret and spire and battlement were stamped sharp and grey against the darkling sky. The six Corinthian columns of the portico stood out like sentinels who had taken a step forward as one man. And in the tympanum overhead the shield of the six eagles that was carved there showed so plainly that Olivia and Jack pointed it out to each other at the same moment.
“You mustn’t think I’ve no respect for the fowls,” said the Duke, when they were both left blinking in the chaste light of the reproving moon; “I’m proud enough of them at the bottom of my heart. I may be slow at catching on to new ideas. I know I didn’t at first take to everything like a duck to water. I couldn’t, after the life I’d led; it was too much for one man. But I am getting used to it now. As old Claude says, I’m beginning to appreciate it. I am so! This has been the proudest day of my life; I’m proud of everything, of the place, the people — —”
“And yourself most of all!” cried a thick voice at his elbow, while Olivia’s fingers tightened on his other arm.
It was Matthew Hunt. He was flushed with wine, but steady enough on his legs. Only his tongue was beyond control, and a crowd was at his heels to hear what he would say next.
“Yes, I remember you,” he continued savagely. “I shan’t forget that morning in a hurry — —”
“Yet you seem to have forgotten who you are speaking to,” put in the Duke quietly.
Hunt laughed horribly.
“Forgotten? I never knew! All I know is as I’m not speaking to his Grace the Duke — —”
Olivia was not shaken off. She only felt a quivering in the arm she held; she only guessed it was the other arm that shot out too quick for her sight from his further shoulder: and all she saw was the dropping of Hunt at their feet, as if with a bullet through his brain. She conquered her impulse to scream, and she found herself saying instead, “Well done! It served him right!” And the voice sounded strange in her own ears.
But her opinion was freely echoed by those who had followed in Hunt’s wake. A dozen hands raised him roughly, and kept their hold of him even when he was firm upon his feet, half stunned still, but wholly sobered. He tried to shake them off, but they answered that he must first apologise to his Grace. He refused, and they threatened him with the pond. He gave in then, in a way, speaking one thing, but looking another, which was yet the plainer of the two to the Duke. It meant that all was not yet over between him and Hunt. And Jack was very silent as he led Olivia back to the terrace.
“You were quite right,” she said as they went; “had I been a man I would have done it for you.”
“You’re a splendid girl,” he replied, to her confusion; but that was all; nor did he seem conscious of what he said.
Already it was late, and in another hour the band had stopped; the fireworks were over; the people all gone, and gone the memory of their ringing cheers from the heart of the Duke, who stood alone with Claude Lafont on the moonlit terrace. Claude had heard of Hunt’s insolence and summary chastisement; he regretted the incident extremely; but his state of mind was nothing to that of the Duke, who was now a prey to reactionary depression of the severest order.
“Are there any revolvers in the house?” said he. “I shall want a loaded one to-night.”
“What in the world for?” cried Claude in dismay.
“Not for my own brains; you needn’t alarm yourself. But you see what a bitter enemy I’ve made; he might get me at his mercy out there at the hut. There was murder in his eye to-night, or else truth in his words, and that you won’t allow. But there was one or the other. So I want a shooter before I go over.”
“If only you wouldn’t go over at all! What’s the use, when there are dozens of good rooms lying idle in the house? It does seem a madness!”
“Well, I am half thinking of giving it up; but not to-night, or that brute may go killing my cats. He’s capable of anything. Give me a revolver like a good chap.”
Claude fetched one from the gun-room. He it was who still knew the whereabouts of all things, who kept the keys, and who arranged most matters for the Duke. He was Jack’s major-domo as well as his guide, philosopher, and friend.
To-night they walked together as far as the shores of the lake. Claude then returned, but for some reason the pair shook hands first. No word was said, save between eye and eye in the pale light of the new harvest moon. But Claude had never yet seen his cousin gaze so kindly on the home of their common ancestors as he did to-night before they separated. And that look was a consolation to the poet as he returned alone to the house.
“This is the last link with that miserable bush life,” said Claude to himself; “and it’s very nearly worn through. He’s beginning to see that there wasn’t so much after all in the inheritance of Esau. After to-night we shall have no more of this nonsense of camping out in a make-believe bush hut; he will sleep under his own roof, like a sane man, and I’ll get him to burn the bush hut down. After that — after that — well, I suppose the wedding-bells and the altar rails are only a question of time!”
And Claude went within, to talk of art and of books until bookman and artist went to bed; but he himself returned to the terrace instead of following their example. A dark depression was brooding over his spirit, his mind was full of vague forebodings. He had also a hundred regrets, and yet the last and the least of these was for the moment the most poignant too. He was sorry he had yielded to Jack in the matter of that revolver. And even as the thought came into his head — by some strange prescience — surely never by coincidence — he heard a shot far away in the direction of the lake. He held his breath, and heard a single throb of his own heart; then another shot; and then another and another until he had counted five.
Now it was a five-chambered revolver that Claude had handed fully loaded to his cousin.
CHAPTER XII
THE WRONG MAN
The Duke had proceeded to his hut with the slow and slouching gait of a man bemused; yet the strings of his body were as those of a lute, and there was an inordinate keen edge to his every sense. He heard the deer cropping the grass far behind him; and he counted the very reverberations of the stable clock striking a half-hour in the still air. It was the half-hour after midnight. The moon still slanted among the pines, and Jack followed his own shadow, with his beard splayed against his shirt-front, until within a few yards of his hut. Then he looked quickly up and about. But the hut was obviously intact; there was the moon twinkling in the padlock of which the key was in his pocket; and Jack returned to his examination of the ground.
He was a very old bushman; he had a black-fellow’s eye for a footprint, and he had struck a trail here which he knew to be recent and not his own. He followed it to the padlocked door, and round the hut and back to the door. He found the two heel-marks where the man had sat down to think some matter over. Then he took out his key and went within, but left the door wide open; and while his back was still turned to it, for he could not find his matches, there was a slight noise there, and the moon’s influx was stemmed by a man’s body.
“Good morning, Hunt,” said Jack, wit
hout turning round.
The tone, no less than the words, took the intruder all aback. He had planned a pretty surprise, only to receive a prettier for his pains.
“How did you know it was me?” he cried.
“By your voice,” was the reply; and the matches were found at last.
“But before that?”
“I expected you. Why didn’t you go on sitting there with your back to the door?”
“You saw me!” cried Hunt, coming in.
“I saw your tracks. Hullo! Be good enough to step outside again.”
“I’ve come to talk to you — —”
“Quite so; but we’ll talk outside.”
And Hunt had to go with what grace he might. Jack followed with a couple of camp-stools, pulled the door to, sat down on one of the stools, and motioned Hunt to the other. The great smooth face shook slowly in reply; and the moonlight showed a bulbous bruise between the eyes, which made its author frown and feel at fault.
“Yes, you may look!” said Hunt through the gap in his set teeth which was a piece of the same handiwork. “You hit hard enough, but I can hit harder where it hurts more. A fine Duke you are! Oh, yes; double your fists again — do. You won’t hit me this time. There’s no one looking on!”
“Don’t be too sure, my boy,” replied Jack. “Don’t you make any mistake!”
Hunt stuck a foot upon his camp-stool and leant forward over his knee.
“Recollect why you struck me to-night?”
“Perfectly.”
“Well, I deserved it — for being such a fool as to say what I had to say at a time like that. It was the drink said it, not me; I apologise again for saying it there, I apologise to you and me too. I was keeping it to say here.”
“Out with it,” said Jack, who to his own astonishment was preserving a perfect calm; as he spoke he began filling a pipe that he had brought out with the matches.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 119
