House of Torment Part 12

The old man's voice caught in his throat. He lifted his cup, and instinctively Johnnie did the same.

"Here's to him," Mr. Lacel whispered, "and to his dame, a sweet and gracious lady, and to his little lad Thomas, and the girl Mary; they have oft sat on my knee--for I am an old widower, Mr. Commendone--when I have told them the tale of the babes in the wood."

Tears were in the Sheriff's eyes, and in the eyes of the young man also, as he raised his cup to his lips and drank the sad and furtive toast.

"And here," Mr. Lacel continued, lifting his cup once more, and leaning forward over the table close to his, "and here's to Lizzie, whom dear Dr. Taylor adopted to be as his own daughter when she was but a little maid of three. Here's to Elizabeth, the sweetest girl, the most blithe companion, the daintiest, most brave little lady that ever trod the lanes of Suffolk----"

He had hardly finished speaking, and Johnnie's hand was trembling as he lifted the goblet to his lips, when there was a noise in the gallery above, and Sir John Shelton, pale of face, and followed by the butler, came noisily down the oak stairs.

The knight's manner was more than a little excited.

"Mr. Commendone," he said in a quick but conciliatory voice, "His Highness--that is to say, the Spanish gentleman--is very fatigued, and cannot ride to London to-day."

He turned to Mr. Lacel.

"Peter," he said, and his voice was now anxious and suave, the voice of a man of affairs, and with something definite to say, "Peter, I must claim your hospitality for the night for myself and for my Spanish friend. Also, I fear, for my men."

Mr. Lacel bowed. "Sir John," he said, "my poor house is very gladly at your disposal, and you may command me in all ways."

"I thank you," Sir John answered, "I thank you very much. You are doing me a service, and perhaps other people a service which----" He broke off shortly, and turned once more to Commendone. "Mr. Commendone," he said, "it is requisite that you will at once to horse with your own servant and one of my men, and ride to London--Excuse me, Peter, but I have a privy word to say to the Esquire."

He drew Johnnie aside. "You must ride post-haste to the Queen," he said, "and tell her that His Majesty is very weary or eke unwell. He will lie the night here and come to London with me in the morning, and by the Ma.s.s, Mr. Commendone, I don't envy you your commission!"

"I will go at once," Johnnie answered, looking at his watch.

"Very good, Mr. Commendone," Sir John answered. "I am not of the Privy Closet, as you know. You are in communion with Her Grace, and have been.

But if all we of the guard hear is true, then I am sorry for you.

Natheless, you must do it. Tell Her Grace of the burning--oh, tell her anything that commendeth itself to you, but let her not think that His Highness is upon some lover's business. And of Duck Lane not a word, not a single word, as you value your favour!"

"It is very likely, is it not, Sir John," Commendone answered, "that I should say anything of Duck Lane?"

The sneer in his voice was so p.r.o.nounced that the big bully writhed uneasily.

"Surely," he replied, "you are a very pattern and model of discretion. I know it well enough, Mr. Commendone."

Johnnie made his adieux to his host.

"But what about your horses, sir?" the old gentleman asked. "As I understand it, you ride post-haste to London. Your nag will not take you there very fast after your long ride."

"I must post, that is all," Johnnie answered. "I can get a relay at Chelmsford."

"Nay, Mr. Commendone, it is not to be thought of," said the squire.

"Now, look you. I have a plenty horses in my stables. There is a roan mare spoiling for work that will suit you very well. And what servants are you taking?"

Sir John Shelton broke in.

"Hadst better take thy own servant and two of my men," he said. "You will be riding back upon the way we came, and I doubt me the country folk are too friendly."

"That is easy done," said Mr. Lacel. "I can horse your yeomen also. In four days I ride myself to Westminster, where I spend a sennight with my brother, and hope to pay my duties at the Court when it moveth to Whitehall, as I hear it is about to do. The horses I shall lend you, Mr.

Commendone, can be sent to my brother's, Sir Frank Lacel, of Lacel House."

"I thank you very much, sir," Johnnie answered, "you are very kind." And with that he said farewell, and in a very few minutes was riding over Aldham Common, on his way back to London.

Right in the centre of the Common there was still a large crowd of people, and he saw a farm cart with two horses standing there.

He made a wide detour, however, to get into the main road for Hadley, shrinking with a sudden horror, more poignant and more physically sickening than anything he had known before, from the last sordid and grisly details of the martyr's obsequies.

... No! Anything would be better than to see this dreadful cleaning up....

The big rawbone mare which he was riding was fresh and playful. Johnnie was a consummate horseman, and he was glad of the distraction of keeping the beast under control. She had a hard mouth, and needed all his skill.

For four or five miles, followed by his attendants at a distance of two or three hundred yards, he rode at a fast canter, now and then letting the mare stretch her legs upon the turf which bordered the rough country road. After this, when the horse began to settle down to steady work, he went on at a fast trot, but more mechanically, and thought began to be born within him again.

Until now he had seemed to be walking and moving in a dream. Even the horrors he had seen had been hardly real. Inexperienced as he was in many aspects of life, he yet knew well that the man with an imagination and sensitive nerves suffers far more in the memory of a dreadful thing than he does at the actual witnessing of it. The very violence of what he had seen done that day had deadened all the nerves, forbidding full sensation--as a man wounded in battle, or with a limb lopped off by sword or shot, is often seen looking with an amazed incredulity at himself, feeling no pain whatever for the moment.

It was now that John Commendone began to suffer. Every detail of Dr.

Taylor's death etched themselves in upon his brain in a succession of pictures which burnt like fire.

As this or that detail--in colour, movement, and sound--came back to him so vividly, his heart began to drum, his eyes to fill with tears, or grow dry with horror, the palms of his hands to become wet. He lived the whole thing over again. And once more his present surroundings became dream-like, as he cantered through the lanes, and what was past became hideously, dreadfully real.

Yet, as the gallant mare bore him swiftly onwards, he realised that the horror and disgust he felt were in reality subservient to something else within him. His whole being seemed quickened, infinitely more alert, ready for action, than it had ever been before. He was like a man who had all his life been looking out upon the world through smoked or tinted gla.s.ses--very pleased and delighted with all he saw, unable to realise that there could be anything more true, more vivid.

Then, suddenly, the gla.s.s is removed. The neutral greyness which he has taken for the natural, commendable view of things, changes and falls away. The whole world is seen in an infinity of light and colour undreamed of, unexpected, wonderfully, pa.s.sionately new.

It was thus with Johnnie, and the fact for some time was stunning and paralysing.

Then, as the brain adjusted itself slowly to fresh and marvellous conditions, he began to question himself.

What did it mean? What did it mean to him? What lay before?

Quite suddenly the explanation came, and he knew.

It was the face of a tall girl, who stood by St. Botolph's tower in the ghostly dawn that had done this thing. It was her voice that had rent aside the veil; it was her eyes of agony which lit up the world so differently.

With that knowledge, with the quick hammering of love at a virgin heart, there came also an enormous expectation. Till now life had been pleasant and happy. All the excitements of the past seemed but incidents in a long tranquillity.

The orchestra had finished the prelude to the play. Now the traverse was drawn aside, and action began.

As the young man realised this, and the white splendour of the full summer sun was answered by the inexpressible glow within, he realised, physically, that he was galloping madly along the road, pressing his spurs to his horse's flanks, riding with loose rein, the stirrups behind him, crouching forward upon the peaked saddle. He pulled his horse up within two or three hundred yards, though with considerable difficulty, the animal seeming, in some subtle way, to share and be part of that which was rioting within his brain.

He pulled her up, however, and she stood trembling and breathing hard, with great clots of white foam covering the rings of the bit. He soothed her, patting the strong veined neck with his hand, bringing it away from the darkening hide covered with sweat. Then, when she was a little more at ease, he slipped from the saddle and led her a few paces along the road to where in the hedge a stile was set, upon which he sat himself.

He held hold of the rein for a minute until he saw the mare begin to crop the roadside gra.s.s quietly enough, when he released her.

For a mile or more the road by which he had come stretched white and empty in the sun. There was no trace of his men. He waited there till they could come up to him.

He began to talk to himself in slow, measured terms, his own voice sounding strange in his ears, coming to them with a certain comfort. It was as though once more he had regained full command and captaincy of his own soul. There were great things to be done, he was commander of his own legions, and, like a general before a battle, he was issuing measured orders to his staff.

"So that it must be; it must be just that; I must find Elizabeth"--his subconscious brain heard with a certain surprise and wonder how the slow voice trembled at the word--"I must find Elizabeth. And then, when I have found her, I must tell her that she, and she alone, is to be my wife, and my lady ever more. I must sue and woo her, and then she must be my wife. It is that which I have to do. The Court is nothing; my service is nothing; it is Elizabeth!"