Peregrine's Progress Part 89

With the words upon his lips he turned, and I recognised Captain Danby. He was halfway across the hall when he espied us and stopped to glare in wide-eyed amazement; something fluttered to the floor and he began to retreat softly and slowly before us, but Anthony was pointing down at a small bundle of lace with hand that shook and wavered strangely.

"Look at it, Perry--look!" he muttered. "Look, man! Why--G.o.d's death, Perry--it's her lace scarf--belongs to my Loveliness, Perry--should know it anywhere--it's--hers, man--and here! Oh, d.a.m.nation!"

In a flash he had picked it up and, roaring like a madman, hurled himself against the closing door. For moment was a desperate scuffling and frenzied straining and gasping, a creaking of stout panels, then the door swung violently open and we burst into the room.

A disordered supper table littered with bottles, three or four breathless gentlemen who panted and glared, and a curtained doorway in one corner; all this I was aware of, though my gaze never left the face of him who stood before this curtained door, a tall, slender man very elegantly calm and wholly unperturbed, except for the slight frown that puckered his thick brows,--a handsome face the paler by contrast with its dark and glossy hair.

For a tense moment there was silence but for Anthony's loud and irregular breathing; when at last he spoke his voice sounded wholly unfamiliar:

"d.a.m.ned scoundrels--look at this! My wife's scarf--is she here? By G.o.d, if she is, I'll find her if I have to kill you one by one and wreck this h.e.l.lish place--"

"Fellow's drunk!" suggested some one, whereupon Anthony cursed them one and all, and I heard the sharp click of the pistol as he c.o.c.ked it, but I restrained him with a gesture:

"Mr. Trenchard," said I, "Mr. Haredale--Devereux or whatever name you happen to be using, I have forced myself upon you to-night to inform you that, knowing you at last for the foul and loathsome thing you are, I am very earnest that you should pollute the world no longer.

Two years ago you struck me in the yard behind the Chequers Inn, at Tonbridge; I call upon you to account for that blow to-night--here and now!"

"Let any man stir and I shoot to kill!" said Anthony between shut teeth; his heavy tread shook the floor behind me, then he had swung me aside and fronted Devereux the pistol in his hand, face convulsed and murder glaring in his eyes.

"Trenchard," said he in strange, hissing whisper, "there is a curtained door behind you--whom are you hiding in there? Trenchard, I am yearning to kill you and kill you I will, so help me G.o.d, unless you draw that curtain and open that door--d'ye hear me?"

Trenchard's tall form seemed to stiffen, his mocking smile vanished, but his eyes never wavered.

Anthony levelled the pistol.

"Trenchard," said he softly, "I'll count three!"

Then Trenchard laughed lightly.

"Egad, sir," said he with a flourish, "drunk or no, you have a devilish persuading air about you. Behold then, and judge of my felicity!"

Thus speaking, he drew aside the curtain and reached white hand towards the door behind, but at this moment and before he could touch it, the door swung open and Diana stepped forth.

"Mr. Vere-Manville," said she, her soft voice calm and even, "pray give me my scarf, your wife made me a present of it days ago!" And she reached out her hand with the old, imperious gesture that I remembered so well. So Anthony gave her the handful of lace and turned his back upon us.

"O Perry!" he exclaimed with a groan, "O Perry, dear friend--what have I done! G.o.d forgive me--"

"Heavens, Anthony!" quoth I. "Pray why distress yourself upon a matter so trivial--besides, I knew already. And now, Mr. Trenchard or Haredale or Devereux, if this lady will be so obliging as to retire, we can settle our small concern very comfortably here across the table."

"No, Peregrine!" said Diana in the same even tone.

"Mr. Trenchard--" I began.

"I say you shall not, Peregrine!" said she softly.

"Mr. Haredale--" quoth I.

"O Peregrine," she sighed, "suspicion has poisoned your mind against me or you would never stoop to doubt me--even here--"

"Mr. Devereux," said I, "will you pray have the courtesy to desire your charming friend to leave us awhile--"

"O Peregrine!" she gasped, and though I never so much as glanced in her direction, I knew she had shrunk farther from me. "Some day, oh, some day, Peregrine, you will regret this bitterly--bitterly--" Her voice broke, and in its place came Devereux's hateful tones:

"'My charming friend' is well aware that her society is my joy and delight, nor shall I cheat myself of one moment on your account, sir, whoever you chance to be."

"Why, then," said I, laying my card on the table, "the lady's presence need not deter us, I think. Let us be done with the affair at once."

"Absolutely and utterly impossible, sir!" he answered, taking up my card. "Since you desire me to kill you, I will do so with a perfect pleasure, but at my own time and place and--" Here he paused as he read my name, and stood a moment staring down at the pasteboard with that same faint pucker of the brow; then he laughed suddenly and tossed my card to Captain Danby. "Odd, Tom!" said he; then turning to me, "Mr. Vereker, I will meet you at the very earliest moment--shall we say five o'clock to-morrow morning? There is a small tavern called 'The Anchor' a few miles along the Maidstone road, a remote spot very suitable for a little shooting. And now, sir, pray begone. I am occupied, as you see--while my friends pour libations to Bacchus, I worship at the shrine of Venus."

Here, turning very ostentatiously, he bowed to Diana, viewing her with look so evil that I clenched my fists and made to spring at him, but Anthony's powerful hand arrested me:

"Come away, Perry," he whispered, "you can do no more to-night. Don't show 'em your pain--pride, man, pride! Come away, old fellow."

So I suffered him to lead me whither he would, following the impulse of his guiding arm like a blind man, for the shadow had closed in blacker than ever, to engulf me at last, and it seemed that my only escape from this horror was to grasp the kindly hand of Death.

Once clear of this accursed house I was seized of a great disgust, a nausea that was both mental and physical, and I groaned aloud in my extremity.

"O G.o.d, Anthony! Oh, my G.o.d!"

At this he clasped me in his arms and I stood awhile, shivering, my face hidden in his bosom.

"Dear fellow!" he muttered. "Women are the devil. I know--I'm married, d'ye see!"

Faint and far away a church clock struck the hour.

"What time was that?" I enquired.

"Eleven o'clock, Perry."

"Six weary hours to wait!" I groaned.

"B'gad, yes--only six hours!"

"Thank G.o.d!" quoth I fervently, and so we went on again, arm in arm.

"You mean to kill that d.a.m.ned fellow, Peregrine?"

"If they place us near enough."

"You are good for twelve paces, I suppose?"

"I don't know."

"But you--you shoot reasonably well, of course?"

"Very badly! This was why I was so anxious to do my shooting across a table--"

"But you--you--O Lord, Perry--you are familiar with the weapon--practised at the galleries occasionally?"