“All right. I won’t.”
“I’m not quite ready. I’ll tell you when to begin.”
With that, I pulled the screwdriver out of the crack in the wall and splashed my way to beneath the ladder of dogs. And there, with a frightful effort, I scratched away the filthy jacket of slime, in search of another interstice between the stones. I had not the strength to reach as high as I wished, and for two or three desperate moments I could not discover a joint; but at last my trembling fingers encountered the ghost of a crack and I managed to put up the blade and to push it a little way in.
I hardly hoped that it would hold me, but I could do no more: and, as I sank down and let the steel take my weight, I perceived that the circle was vicious – the circle in which I moved. My state of exhaustion demanded a handhold at once: to create such a handhold exhausted me unto death…
Then I knew that the blade was holding, and when I had rested a moment, I was able to push it further into the crack.
“Are you ready, my darling?”
“Yes. I’m ready,” I said, and hoped for the best.
As will have been guessed, my primitive plan was this – to drive the tyre-levers between the stones of the well and so climb up by them to the foot of the ladder above. The objections to this were so obvious that I will not set them out: but the one which ruled the rest was my lack of strength to do more than hold myself up. Yet, something had to be done, for the icy water was gradually having its way…
I watched my lady’s stocking pass out of the light of the lamps, with the levers jingling within it to tell me how far they had come, and three or four seconds later, I guided them into the pocket adorning the breast of my coat. As I felt for the head of the stocking, to cast it loose, I found that it had been tied to a piece of flexible wire.
At once I lifted my voice.
“That’s enough. How much cord have you left?”
“About eight feet, my darling.”
“What is it made of, Elizabeth?”
“Two pieces of cord, the strap and some flexible wire. The last was in the tool-box, on an inspection lamp.”
I could have cried out for joy. Flexible wire will bear a considerable weight.
Again I addressed my lady.
“I want you to move the car; so that one of its wheels is directly in line with the ladder – say, five feet away from the well. Before you do this, hitch the cord round a statue, so that it doesn’t fall.”
“Very well.”
Whilst she was doing my bidding, I unfastened the end of the ‘flex’. Then with a shaking hand I got it about my body, under my arms. As I made it fast, I heard Elizabeth’s voice.
“Yes, Richard? The car is there.”
“Take your end of the cord and thread it between the spokes and so round the tyre. Then, very slowly, draw it as tight as you can. When you hear me shout, make it fast by taking two or three turns.”
“Very well.”
A moment later the ‘flex’ began to move.
I dared not ask too much of so frail a rope, and directly it took the strain, I called to my lady to stop; but though it could not have borne me, it held me up and, what was a thousand times better, it freed my hands. Before she was back at the head of that cursed well, I had hammered one of the levers into the wall.
Now I was not out of the wood by a very long way, but I knew that the lever would bear the whole of my weight: and this meant that, if I could manage to plant my other levers as rungs, I could emerge from the water which threatened to take my life.
After working the matter out, I called upon my lady to loosen the cord…
Somehow I planted a lever beneath the waterline.
Since I had but three, this seemed a terrible waste, but I simply had not the strength to drag myself clear of the water without some support below. And when the business was done and the slack of the cord taken up, it was all I could do to reach the first lever I drove. And there I hung, like a man cast up on some shore, who knows what still lies before him if he is to save his life and doubts that he has the strength to get to his feet and stagger landward out of the reach of the waves. For I had to set one of my feet on the lever below, and, when it was there, I had to haul myself up – a terribly difficult movement, at any time.
Stand at the foot of a ladder of seven rungs – of which all are missing, except the second and fourth. Then take hold of the second and mount the fourth… And I was not standing, and I was very tired.
Of course, the trouble was this – that my levers were much too close. And yet I could not plant them farther apart: for without some foothold I could not work higher up, and in my exhausted condition I could not work lower down.
It was a very near thing.
I never could have done it, without Elizabeth’s help: for she handled the cord with such skill, always just taking the strain, but never taking my weight, that I depended upon her from first to last. When after a frightful convulsion I got a foot on to the lever, to hang, bent double, half in and half out of the flood: when the water clung to my body, as though reluctant to let go its lawful prey; when I made my last desperate effort to heave myself clear of its clutches and, keeping my foot on the lever, to straighten my knee; when I was up and was standing against the wall of the well, and all the handhold I had was the lever a bare two inches above my knee; when I dared to let go of this and, bracing my thigh against it, put up my hands above me, to search the wall… At these times, that poor cord saved me – and nothing else. And yet it must have broken, if once it had taken my weight.
Trembling, I straightened my back and put up my hands…and met the last rung of the ladder shoulder-high.
Reaching up as far as I could, I could actually grip the last but two of the dogs driven into the side of the well.
Be sure I tested the three as well as I could. Then I mounted my second lever and tested the fourth and fifth.
Though rust had corrupted them all, they seemed to be sound, and since they were very thick and were almost certainly grappled behind the stones of the well, I wasted no more time, but swung myself up.
Once I was on the ladder, I called my lady by name: and when she replied, I told her to drop the cord.
“I’m on the ladder,” I said, “but I want to know where it stops.”
“Just clear of the parapet, Richard.”
“Stand still where you are,” said I. “I’ll come up and see.”
It was as she said. The last of the dogs – or the first – was set perhaps six inches below the true rim of the well.
“Draw the cord tight,” I said, “and then give me your end.”
I passed this round my body and then threw it back.
“Put it round the wheel again and give it to me.”
Again she did as I said: and again I passed it about me and pitched the end of it back.
“Now make that fast to the wheel, and then stand clear.”
There was a moment’s silence.
Then —
“All right, Richard,” she said.
“Are you standing well back?”
“I am.”
I took the five strands in my hand, and took a step up. The dogs were taking my weight, but the cord was holding me into the side of the well. I mounted step by step, and hand over hand. As my head rose above the parapet, I saw Elizabeth standing with one of her hands to her throat.
Three more steps…
Then I flung a leg over the wall and pulled myself in.
I was lying flat on the cobbles, with my head in Elizabeth’s lap.
“You’ve paid your debts,” I said somehow. “You saved my life.”
“If I did, then I saved my own. But I didn’t save it, my darling. I may have helped: but I think your great heart saved you, and nothing else.”
I laughed at that.
“You wouldn’t say that, my sweet, if you’d seen me down in that water an hour ago.”
Elizabeth smiled her rare smile. Then she glanced at her watch.
“Did it seem so long, my darling? It’s not quite twenty minutes since you sent me out of this court.”
Whilst I was still staring, she put down her lips to mine. Then she held my head to her breast and kept saying over ‘My Richard’ and smoothing my dripping-wet hair. And then she kneeled up on the cobbles, which must have hurt very much, and thanked the God that made her for bringing me out of the well. And, perhaps because I was shaken and not yet myself, I lost what control I had and the tears ran down my cheeks. And, seeing this, she broke into tears herself, and the two of us wept together for joy of being together and both alive.
Ten minutes later we left that sinister court.
To the best of my belief, all traces of our occupation had been removed, and unless the well were searched, which was improbable, no one, I think, would have guessed that the haunted peace of Palfrey had been disturbed.
Elgar’s body lay with his master’s within the well, and the ounce of blood he had lost was cloaked with a handful of soil. Made fast to a block of stone, the pieces of cord and the strap lay fifty feet deep; and, except for the two tyre-levers, the tool-kit was once more complete. And the dressing-case rested behind us, its cargo of stone discharged.
Clear of the court, I stopped by Elizabeth’s wish. Then I left the car and stripped and rubbed myself down with the silk with which we two had been gagged: then I wrung out my trousers and put them back on my legs; but I drove to Brief bare backed, “for a shirt that is soaked,” she insisted, “is worse than nothing at all.”
I did not argue with her, for, for all I knew, she was right: but after the chill of that water, the cool night airs seemed hot, and, wet as they were, my clothes had felt warm upon me before I had spent five minutes out of that well.
And then we set out for Brief.
It was very near three o’clock when I berthed the car in the shadows which masked the entrance-drive, for now the moon was up and was refining the country on which, as we both believed, we had looked our last an hour and a quarter before.
Ten minutes later, perhaps, we entered her staircase-turret and climbed its steps…
Now I had advised that Elsa be told to dress and to be beyond Brief’s verge before six o’clock – unless she preferred to be charged with attempted murder and almost certainly sent to prison for life: but, to our surprise and relief, her bed was untouched and she was not within the suite. In fact, it was very soon clear that, because she did not trust Virgil – and there she can scarcely be blamed – she had discarded the rôle which she had been ordered to play, and had selected a better and surer part.
To be short, ‘Monna Lisa’ had fled – taking with her the best of all that Elizabeth had.
That she had behaved with discretion cannot, I think, be denied; for, had Virgil returned, and not we, he would have been forced for his own sake to cover his creature’s retreat. Though he would have raged in spirit, he must have subscribed to the fiction that she had gone with Elizabeth, when she eloped – the devoted maid, attending her erring mistress upon her clandestine flight, and bearing an excellent suitcase, laden with precious goods. Unsuspected, far less pursued. she would have passed out of his ken on the wings of the wind he had sown – and left him to reap any whirlwind that happened to rise… There can be no doubt that Elsa was very shrewd.
In fact, her disappearance suited us very well, for we had our secrets to keep, and such a wolf in sheep’s clothing was far better out of our way: and though the things she had taken were worth a good deal, their loss but served to remind us of what we had saved that night.
I made the most of the bathroom before I did anything else; but, of course, I had no dry clothes and, though I begged for my shirt, Elizabeth would not allow me to put it on. Instead, when I reappeared, she put a flask into my hand and bade me do as she told me or else go off to my bed. Since some things remained to be settled. I let her have her way, but I could not help thinking of the strictures which would have been passed, if the Duchess of Whelp had suddenly entered the room.
I suppose that one treasures for ever the gift of forbidden fruit: but I know that as long as I live I shall never forget the short, most intimate scene which brought to an end the drama in which we had played that night. Less than an hour before, I had been fighting for life in Palfrey’s terrible well: and now I was in Elizabeth’s exquisite bedroom, sitting, with a flask in my hand, on the foot of Elizabeth’s bed, while Elizabeth stood to her pier-glass, putting her hair to rights.
Her clothes were stained and torn and one of her legs was bare – for that had furnished the stocking which she had sent down the well. Her delicate ankle was bruised, and the wrists she had raised were marked, for the cords had chafed her skin; but bruises and stains and tears could not at all diminish the startling splendour of body which she had been given at birth, and for the five-hundredth time I wondered how Virgil had dared to lay hands upon something so perfect and irreplaceable. Indeed, I can only suppose that a man who will plan and commit such hideous and cold-blooded murder as he did his best to do, is ruthless to a degree which most of us cannot conceive, for, though he was her cousin and had been familiar with her for a number of years, her beauty was such as custom can never stale. (And that is not my opinion and that of nobody else, for the Duchess of Whelp and John Herrick have many times said the same thing, but have put it far better than I.)
Then I met her eyes in the glass and the two of us smiled, and I saw myself beyond her, looking like any miner, about to begin his toil.
“High time I was gone,” said I, and got to my feet.
Elizabeth spoke over her shoulder.
“As a matter of fact, I love to see you there. When we’re married, you must always sit there when I’m brushing my hair.”
Old Harry’s words rang in my ears, and I turned away.
I must request your assurance upon one point. That is that you are aware that you cannot possibly marry the Countess of Brief.
For an instant my spirit rebelled.
She owed me her patent. I, Richard Exon, had made her the Countess of Brief. And we had faced death together. We had entered the mouth of Hell and had turned round and come back together into the rolling world. And now I was in her bedroom at…half-past three of a morning, stripped to the waist…and she was before her mirror, brushing her beautiful hair… And yet I could not be her husband… I could be haled up to Pisgah, to view the promised land. And then, when I had viewed it and seen how fair were its fruits, I could withdraw from my view-point and go my ways.
And then I remembered Old Harry’s other words:
Always remember – these things cannot be helped. I loved a commoner once, and he loved me. But there are some bars, Richard Exon, more rigid than those you loosed. So we both of us did our duty…
‘We both of us did our duty.’
I put the flask to my lips and when I had drained it dry I put it back in the cupboard from which she had taken it down.
“What about tomorrow?” I said. “I mean, if we can, we’d better keep out of the wet. Not that I care. If the police knew I’d bumped him off, they’d put their arms round my neck. But I can’t hear anyone knowing that you were involved… And yet—”
“My darling, what are you saying?”
I turned to meet Elizabeth’s startled eyes.
Then she laid down her brush and came and put her hands on my shoulders.
“Can you get what I’m saying, Richard? Or are you all in?”
“I’m all right, my beauty, but I’m too tired to make plans.”
“I’ll make them for you;” she said; “and now listen to me. When you leave this room, you must go by the way that you came. That is, by the picture-gallery. There you must pick up the harp – I’ll help you do that. And then you must pick up Winter and enter the tower. And so to bed. At seven Winter cancels the horses – you gave him that order last night, by my request. He calls you again at nine: but, because there is no one to call me, I sleep till ten. Then I find that
Elsa has gone: and after a little I find that she’s taken some of my things. But you don’t even know that – because neither you nor your servant were out of the tower all night.”
“Yes, I’ve got that,” I said.
“It’s vital, Richard – vital. If we say anything, we’ve got to say everything. And, except for Old Harry and Herrick, no one must ever know what happened tonight.” She raised her eyebrows there and gave a little shake of her head. “I don’t know what stuff I’m made of, but it hasn’t upset me at all Neither was fit to live – quite apart from the fact that you did it in self-defence. But the fact remains that you’ve been the death of two men…and one of those men was the cousin with whom I have been brought up… My darling, listen to me. It simply must not be known that the man whom I am to marry put Percy Virgil to death.”
“Yes, I see that,” I said somehow. “All right. I’ll keep my counsel, and Winter will hold his tongue.” I put my arms about her and held her close. “Kiss me good night, my lady. The dawn will be coming up, and I want you to get to bed.”
As I kissed her mouth, she took my head in her hands…
“Oh, Richard,” she breathed, “I can’t bear letting you go. I’ve got to, of course – the conventions must be observed. You’re here by accident: and so you must go away. But it seems so natural and right for you to be here. After all, how many brides have known their bridegrooms so well? Tonight we stood together beyond the world, breast-high in the river that runs between life and death. And that has bound us together more tightly than any service or any plighting of troth. Supposing I was engaged to be married to somebody else. I might have meant to go through with it, although I loved you. I mean, such things have been done. But I couldn’t go through with it now – not after tonight. I should have to tell him straight out that we had been joined together by God Himself and that I had become your woman and you had become my man.”
I dared not trust my voice, so I kissed her lips again: then I drew her head on to my shoulder, because I did not want her to see the look in my eyes.
What she had said was most true. We had been joined together as lovers are seldom joined. And yet we should never be married, because Old Harry would never give her consent. And I – not she – must have Old Harry’s consent.
She Painted Her Face Page 21
